The Romance of Roger Clavin

IN VANITY FAIR

The Story of the Only Man Since Byron to Live by Gestures Alone

THEY said strange things of Roger Clavin, and not strangely. There were some who said of him that he was the only man since Lord Byron to live by gestures alone. But that is not true. For he married in the end, and there is nothing like marriage to spoil the precious art of the foseur. In a sense, however, even his marriage was a sort of gesture. Perhaps I shall tell you something of that.

Roger Clavin determined, apropos of nothing, to marry himself off. In the beginning it was no more than a whimsy, and he had not invented for himself any particular theory for the selecting of a mate. Nevertheless, he proceeded in his search with wit and with energy. He met a great many of the young women of society who were suitable in a general way. He inspected each of these with an open mind: of each he was ready to admit that this one might be she. Feverishly for a little his mind searched each one, her mind, her eyes, her movements. With each he found an insufficiency, in fact, several insufficiencies that damned her. And as the leaf from the tree he fell from her indifferently.

THIS might have gone on until Roger Clavin, again like the leaf from the tree, had fluttered, unsatisfied, into a middle-aged grave. As it happened, however, he finally went to the pains of determining what this something was that was invariably lacking. Since, after all, he was Roger Clavin, he thought that he found it; and it was shortly afterward, after a diligent campaign, that he discovered Sylvia Heath. With those that had gone before, he had been fortified by the ancient armour of bachelors: that to admit a little to oneself is, in sentimental things, to dismiss a great deal. With Sylvia, however, he deceived himself. He never drew the line between pathological fact and romancing.

Thus it was that Roger Clavin married Sylvia Heath because, as he fondly believed, she was the only woman he had ever met who could take an idea as an intellectual toy. You don't believe it? What don't you believe: that there exists such a woman or that Roger Clavin married her only for that?

Well, it was of a summer's evening that it happened, which may or may not have been symbolism, as you like. The glow of the moon thrust but a dim vanguard through the white columns of the veranda of Sylvia's country house, which overlooked a lake. Neither of them would have found a light welcome. There was a comfortable obscurity where Roger Clavin sat. The champagne splashing in his goblet whispered amusements to itself and Roger listened to it and to Sylvia talking about barbarians and unicorns and her theories of civilization.

Something occurred suddenly to him. Without waiting for Sylvia to finish her sentence he said quietly, "I don't know what the necessary emotions are, but I think I have them. For the last five minutes I have been playing with the thought of marrying you. Does the idea amuse you?"

"I'm not sure that it does," said Sylvia, startled. "But wait a minute. Sit quietly and let me play with the thought myself for a bit. It's always an entertaining idea."

There came the silence of the still waters under the earth. Abashed, the light withdrew tactfully and Roger sighed, for the whisperings of the champagne were becoming ribald. He looked out of obscurity into obscurity toward Sylvia. It was, after all, not necessary to see her. He remembered the fragile, womanly face and the courteous eyes and the contemptuous mouth. And in a little while he would hear her voice, saying what her mind told it to say. What else was there? What else did he desire?

After a time when it was so dark that there could be nothing but a voice, there was a voice. It said, "Yes. I know everything that you might do and that you would never do. You couldn't do any better than to ask me to marry you."

Roger was not the least disturbed by her change in his original idea. "Good," he said. "Tomorrow?"

"Whenever you like. I'll be busy until two tomorrow afternoon. If that isn't too late, you may come for me. Now, you interrupted me. 1 was saying that the Russians are, after all, more advanced in art. The French—Cezanne, Derain, Matisse,

Seurat, Van Dongen .. . for example . . . Somebody, once said . .

And so, in the silence of that summer evening, two unexcited voices answered one another reasonably. Their bodies became perhaps disengaged and floated out through the casements after the retreating light that had deserted them. But the voices needed no light. They continued as they had begun, delicate, articulated, the two halves of a perfect circumference that excluded a whole universe less two voices.

You may have observed that the scene was too perfect, too unearthly, too in the manner of Henry James to be true. There is a revelation to be made. Two hours later two people might have been seen in two widely removed rooms, both doing precisely the same thing. Sylvia was turning quickly the pages of a magazine. She found a place and read eagerly. At last she laughed, "Here it is. This is exactly what he said, bless his plagiaristic heart."

Meanwhile Roger, in his own room, with a certain air of disquietude, was looking through the pages of the same magazine. Several times a look came across his face, as though a light had been turned on inside. He arrived finally at some conclusion, for he jumped up and his mind cried, "Yes, that is the real reason why I asked Sylvia to marry me."

At three minutes past two o'clock the next day he presented himself at Sylvia's. Any earthly imaginings he may have been guilty of had been dismissed. But Sylvia did not disclose herself until three o'clock. His impatience was perfectly contained. He was rewarded when she appeared, more witty and, indeed, more lovely than ever. They were married by the City Clerk.

The nuptial dawn that inspires confidences found them a shade less ethereal.

"Tell me," said Sylvia, "when you began to love me."

"Well," Roger told her smiling, "it was when I guessed that you didn't pitch horseshoes."

But of course he meant, as Sylvia knew, that it was when he discovered that she was a subscriber to VANITY FAIR.

DAVID CORT